Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site aurora.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!zehntel!hplabs!ames!aurora!al
From: al@aurora.UUCP (Al Globus)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Space Station costs
Message-ID: <342@aurora.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 14-May-85 15:28:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: aurora.342
Posted: Tue May 14 15:28:04 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 23-May-85 03:45:46 EDT
References: <1699@mordor.UUCP>
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 20

> 
> I just reread Gene's post and must correct the numbers. The space station
> funding is ~$8B over 10-12 years (A ludicrously long timeframe). The
> average funding is in $100M's/year.  The NASA budget is about 6.5B/yr, and I
> believe about 50% of that is for aeronautics rather than astronautics. If
> anyone is interested in the actual breakdown, I'll try to dig it up and post
> it.

Aeronautics is considerably less than 50%.  Also, the $8 billion does not
include launch, crew, training, or any payloads.  It does not include
$3-4 billion of foreign participation.   It does not include substational
internal funds NASA contractors have invested (NASA did a wonderful job
of getting the contractors to spend their own money in the initial studies,
including the current phase B studies).  Total cost is hard to estimate,
particularly over the 20-30 year design life of the station.  My guess is
$15-20 billion to IOC (initial operational capability) and plenty more
after it.

This is not to knock the station, I'm a big fan (in fact I work on it).  But
the fact is that total cost is considerably in excess of $8 billion.